


For Whom the Bell Tolls

by DreamofHakeem



Series: 4 Your Eyez Only [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Comfort, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, F/M, J.Cole, Natural Hair, Reader Of Color - Freeform, Songfic, but it doesn't cure ptsd so, it just helps to have someone, love heals, this isn't to imply that it does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 11:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10385880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamofHakeem/pseuds/DreamofHakeem
Summary: Songfic Based off of J.Cole's For Whom the Bell Tolls off his album 4 Your Eyez OnlyBruce spends a lot of time staring out of windows. He spends more time thinking, and even more time still just talking. When you initially suggested he say everything he felt out loud, he didn't think you really meant it, didn't think you could handle everything that drifted through his head. But you take it all, and you never run. Bruce spends a lot of time staring out of windows, but now that you're with him, he thinks about jumping a little less.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There isn't enough love for Bruce Banner on this site.

     Screaming.

     That’s mostly what Bruce hears when he sits on the dock.

     Sometimes it’s his, but it’s mostly _theirs_. Those people. Innocent people that he’d harmed. When that girl got the drop on him and he’d lost control for that one second, on second too long. Long enough for the Other Guy to wreck. To destroy. All that he’s ever done.

_That’s all I’ve ever done._

      He tries not to think like that. For your sake, he tries to remind himself that the actions of the Other Guy are not his fault. It seldom works, but he tries anyway.

      It usually doesn’t take him this long to dissociate, doesn’t take him long to block out the looming of emptiness that overwhelms him when he’s back to normal.

_Back to being weak. Back to doing nothing._

       He spent such a long time alone after he flew that jet away from Sokovia, considered going back to Bella Coola, but decided against it. Instead he flew as far west as he could until the plane ran out of fuel. Landed in the woods near Bloomington lake, ripped the plane to pieces, tired the Other Guy out, and blacked out. He woke up in a soft bed wearing even softer clothes, that was the day he met you.

_For once it wasn’t death bells that I was hearing, but what’s the difference?_

        You, with your kind eyes, and tentative words. You never were afraid of him, to you, he was just a man fighting his own demons, a man that needed to rest, to heal. You tell him he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen on a hike, and the way your eyes shine at him, he believes you. You hold him down when he tries to push you away, and he stops fighting. You tell him all about yourself, you tell him stories, you sing him songs, and he listens. You give him advice, and he listens.

_The times when you’re talking are the only times I don’t hear them._

          Slowly, ever so slowly, he begins to talk. To himself, to an empty room, eventually he talks to you. He tells you small things, heavy things, he reminds you to wrap your hair before bed and tells you what he thinks about on the docks. You listen to him, never asking for more, never wishing for less, you take everything he gives you and store it away, likes jars of pebbles from the shore.

_She makes me ~~weak~~ strong._

           She spends a lot of time outdoors, and sometimes he joins her. Sometimes he meditates while she reads a book, sometimes she  does yoga while he stares into the woods and lets the abyss stare back at him. Sometimes he’d sit on the railing in the rain, and she’d drag him back inside muttering about illnesses he can’t contract. He doesn’t sit out in the rain anymore, for her sake. When the torrid weather rolls around in the spring, he resigns himself to windows.

_ I wouldn’t mind living this way for a while longer.. ~~I’m not sure if the bells toll, or if they’re just a memory now~~ _

         When the fighting breaks out, and he watches his friends fall apart on the news, and she tells him the she’ll still be here when he gets back, he knows that as long as she’s alive, he won’t ever have to be alone with the Other Guy again. The weather lets up, the forest comes alive again, and Bruce doesn’t hear screaming on the docks anymore, doesn’t think about jumping. Bruce knows he’ll always have a giant on his shoulders, knows that the Other Guy will always be lurking at the corners of his eyes for the rest of his life. But he also knows that he doesn’t need to let that cloud him from enjoying the times when he’s himself, and he knows that he’s enjoying the time he’s spending with you. He’s smiling again, and you’ve noticed. His face is worn, and you think that he could still look exhausted even if he’d slept for a century, but his smiles reach his eyes and he doesn’t curl in on himself the way he used to.

          Sometimes it’s hard, when it gets loud in his mind. It’s hard to remember that he’s not alone, hard not to remember that one day you’ll die, and then he will be alone. But you make it hard for those times to last very long. He feels he’s still got the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’s still fighting these demons, but he can tear his eyes away from the abyss, and he can let you take him into your arms, and he can acknowledge that he won’t have to fight the Lonely again for quite some time.


End file.
